Mod idea: Economy mod

[eadingas]

Here's an idea that would launch RTW gaming experience into a whole different level:
no units. Just diplomats and spies. The only way to conquer a city would be to buy it.
It would have to be a small-scale map. Say, one country with 200 towns and villages to 'conquer'. It would also have to be balanced out economically, so that you would have no problems with squalor despite no garrison - I suppose all buildings would have to have huge happiness bonuses. Or just make one unit available with 0 attack and 0 defense for garrison purposes.
But it could be fun. Make a pure economy game out of RTW. The economy would have to be more challenging than in vanilla, so that the player could face all new challenges... Although I'm not sure if we could make it work without armies, since most of the money goes out to pay upkeep for soldiers - any ideas how to balance it out, other than making all buildings extremely expensive?

[Myrddraal]

hm, I dunno about that, what about bandits, they would take over the world...

[Monkwarrior]

It is strange, but this morning I was thinking in something similar, not so limited with regard to battles.
The idea was that the factions are only able to recruit militia, with very low battle skills, and low costs (only for garrison), and all the conquest should be done with mercenaries, very expensive to recruit and to mantain.
That means you must manage your empire from an economical point of view and only when you try to enlarge the empire or defend it from an invasion, you will hire mercenaries. And you should "finish the contract with them" just when the conquest or the defense were finished.
This would require a larger variety of mercenaries, but it could also serve to change the character of your army depending on the part of the map you are conquering or defending.

Do you think this would be possible?
My concern is about the factions controlled by the AI. Would they hire mercenaries or we would face huge armies of militia?

Cheers.

[Myrddraal]

I think you'd face huge armies of militia. I've never seen a merc in AI control, but maybe I'm just unlucky...

[eadingas]

There would be huge armies of militia. That's the problem with allowing AI to build any armies.
I wonder what would the AI do if there were only mercenary units allowed.
Hmm I see a problem in that even a single general bodyguard unit could be used to conquer cities, and if there are no defenders inside, they'd take them by hunger.
I don't suppose there is a way to reduce campaign map movement to 0 ?

[Epistolary Richard]

I've never seen a merc in AI control, but maybe I'm just unlucky...

You'll see some in Segestica or in one of the Arabian provinces, but they're placed there at the beginning of the game.

I think some investigation into modding economics would be useful, particularly to try and nix the cash excess after the early game. Ideally, the player should be constantly fighting off bankruptcy all the way through the game and going to war with one of your major trading partners should plunge you deeply into the red.

Given, however, that the economic side is not really RTW's strong suit I really wouldn't be sure about making the entire game about it...

I don't suppose there is a way to reduce campaign map movement to 0 ?

There is, Duke John posted this thread at the end of last year:

C. Zeroing starting action points in descr_character.txt:
starting_action_points 0
But "Stop!" you scream, now nobody can move. And then my twisted mind starts working; you can create traits that add action points to named characters/familiy members, agents and admirals upon creation. So now we have only eliminated movement of captains.

[eadingas]

Aha! That would be good then. Just standing garrisons in the cities to guard off the brigants.